


Don't Think Twice

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Fluff, Multi, Post-Canon, VRAINS Rarepair Week 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:16:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17125481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: A drabble collection for vrains rarepair week!1. [hireshipping, adventure/domestic] post-canon. Once upon a time, all contact between Ema and Akira happened over the phone. Information about jobs, about treasure, about entirely new worlds. Things have changed a little bit since then. (And not for the worse.)2. [firestorm, Christmas] The message from Takeru came on Christmas Eve and with approximately a dozen typos. After a bit of consulting with Ai, Yusaku managed to figure out that it read, more or less-Yusaku? Do you have any plans for Christmas?3. [fireball, birthday] The days surroundingthatday were always the worst of the year. The weather was awful, turning cold enough to bite at the tips of Takeru’s exposed fingers and turning his nose bright red, chapping his lips and making shivers run up his spine no matter how many layers he put on. Call it an old habit, but Takeru usually stayed home. (This year, though, someone else was spending it with him.)





	1. [hireshipping] domestic/adventure

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't manage to finish my main fic for today's prompt, so I did I quick drabble about the other one!! So this will serve as a collection for all the other drabbles I manage to finish between my longer fics for the event. 
> 
> 1\. [hireshipping, adventure/domestic] post-canon. Once upon a time, all the contact between Ema and Akira happened over the phone. Information about jobs, about treasure, about entirely new worlds. Things have changed a little bit since then. (And not for the worse.)

Receiving a call from Akira had once upon a time been a thrill. It had been the promise of adventure, of treasure, of all the pretty little things she couldn’t wait to get her hands on. The moment she’d seen his name on the screen her heart had done a victorious little leap, pulsed excited against her ribs and driven desire through her veins at the thought of what treasures she might unearth this time. 

She’d never once worried about moving on her own- in fact, it allowed her a bit of freedom to show off her skills that working with Akira or Blood Shepherd- with Kengo- never afforded her. But, she’d think, picking up the call with a delicate hand, getting to see Akira on the way to pick up her treasures was never anything but a bonus.

 

(He was a good man. She’d known that from the moment they’d met- too good to have his hands stained in the places he did. He’d known her only as Ghost Girl, and she’d cared so little for anything he could offer her outside of the virtual worlds they’d trawled. But something about standing side by side with him through the worst of it- though the battles with hackers and the duels and the voids of data that would swallow them whole with one wrong step- made her do something she’d never thought possible.

_ Thank you, Ghost Girl, _ he’d say after every job, meaning it so earnestly. And every time Ema had smiled, hoping it reached her eyes.

_ Ema, _ she’d said one day, enchanted by the way he’d laughed as he’d handed over her pay,  _ call me Ema. _

“Ema,” he’d replied, soft and tentative but so very pleased- and in that moment Ema had thought. She never met with clients in the real world- that wasn’t her style. It was her own decision to hide her face, and not just on her avatar. But if Akira asked her one day to meet, even if just to hand over information too sensitive to send over the network… Then, well. She wouldn’t say she’d do it. She wouldn’t decline, either.)

 

Now, calls from Akira tended to be things like  _ can you pick up milk on your way home tonight? _ or  _ remind me what color you said you wanted for the new flooring, _ all the little mundane things that Ema hadn’t relied on another soul for since she’d set out from home and wound up in the heart of Den City, dazzling as the metropolis itself. 

The days of their work together weren’t over, and sometimes she’d answer the phone with a clipped, amused-  _ I already got the groceries, Akira _ only to be met with an awkward pause as Akira tried to figure out how to reroute the conversation from their private life to the contract he wanted her to take up. And each time Ema would shake her head and wonder at how, even though she knew, her heart still did a little flutter when she went to pick up the calls, each and every time. But, she supposed, but. 

The little things might just have been treasures, too.


	2. [firestorm] christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2\. The message from Takeru came on Christmas Eve and with approximately a dozen typos. After a bit of consulting with Ai, Yusaku managed to figure out that it read, more or less- _Yusaku? Do you have any plans for Christmas?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> late but. oh well. happy belated christmas!

The message from Takeru came on Christmas Eve and with approximately a dozen typos. After a bit of consulting with Ai, Yusaku managed to figure out that it read, more or less-  _ Yusaku? Do you have any plans for Christmas? _

Ai snorted. Yusaku ignored him. He sent back a simple-  _ No.  _

It took a minute or two for the next reply to come. It was noticeably more coherent than the first. He didn’t even have to pass the phone over to Ai to read-  _ So do you want to hang out?  _

_ Sure. _

_ Great! _ Takeru said, and the rest of the message was, at least to Yusaku’s untrained eye, utterly indecipherable. He could have been trying to text in English, for all Yusaku knew. Why Takeru had decided to text when most of their conversations usually took place over call, Yusaku didn’t know. But it was making things awfully inconvenient. 

“He wants to meet you at the public viewing plaza at five! You’ve got a daaaate,” Ai chirped in that awfully grating tone he liked to use when he thought he was being particularly clever. Yusaku opened his mouth, the instinct to tell him to quiet down basically second nature, at this point- then stopped.

“Christmas isn’t a couple’s holiday.”

The look Ai shot him was positively withering. “Yusaku.  _ Yusaku.” _

Yusaku returned it blankly. It wasn’t. He was sure it wasn’t. And besides. Even if it was,  _ Takeru _ had asked him. As far as Yusaku was aware, they weren’t dating. “It isn’t a date.”

Ai just snickered and made a horrid expression that was probably supposed to be him waggling the eyebrows he didn’t have. For his own sanity, Yusaku just turned his back on Ai and refused to think about it any longer. 

(Even if Ai refused to shut up about it until Yusaku left him behind in the house the next day.)

 

They met up at the public viewing plaza, Takeru with bright red mittens that looked brand-new on his hands and a muffler to match. He wasn’t shivering, though he didn’t exactly look  _ warm, _ either. But upon catching sight of Yusaku his entire posture shifted- he leaned forwards with an excited smile, waving Yusaku forwards through the crowd. Yusaku wove his way there, watching the rainbow lights reflect off Takeru’s glasses, shifting with each step. 

“Thanks for coming,” Takeru said, “I know it was really last minute.”

“It’s fine. Was there something you wanted to do?”

Takeru pointed down one of the main streets, packed tight with a large crowd of people around their age or older, specks of laughter and quiet energy beneath the lit-up storefronts. “Window shopping! Also I want to send a New Year’s gift back home, so I want to look for that. And then we can eat at the fried chicken place at the end of the street. Sound good?”

“You planned this out,” Yusaku observed, and Takeru gave an awkward laugh.

“Yeah, sorry… Is it bad?”

Yusaku shook his head, then started towards the street Takeru had pointed towards, leaving Takeru to keep pace at his side. “No. Sounds like fun.”

He said it honestly- Yusaku had never really bothered going out at Christmas before, save to the convenience store down the street for dinner or something equally mundane. A few times he’d spent it with Kusanagi, but for the most part Kusanagi liked to spend it with his brother, and Yusaku wasn’t going to intrude, no matter how much like family they were. Some things were still best left private, for now.

And, Yusaku found, it really  _ was _ fun. Takeru flit about this store and that, asking Yusaku’s opinion on everything from jewelry to novelty products off the bargain racks, and he found himself smiling more than he had for a very long time. Though they’d talked about  _ window _ shopping, gradually did the bags on Takeru’s wrists start to increase until Yusaku had to take two or three of them for him just so he wasn’t in danger of collapsing. But, just as he did-

“This is for you,” Takeru said, and pulled a royal blue scarf from his bag- his personal one that he’d been carrying from the very start. Yusaku reached out a hand for it, but Takeru moved faster, reaching up to wind it loosely around Yusaku’s neck. It was chilled from the night air, but still warmer than the bite of the winter winds. And it was soft. “It’s not much, but I hope you like it. Uh, Kiku made it. She was really excited when she heard I made a friend here, so, uh…”

“Sorry,” Yusaku said, “I didn’t get you anything.”

“No, you didn’t have to! And actually, thanks,” Takeru said, meeting Yusaku’s gaze with a small, pleased smile, “I’ve uh, since I started living with my grandparents, I’ve always spent Christmas with them and Kiku’s family. We all go out to look at the lights and then come back with a ton of fried chicken and spend the rest of the night opening presents and watching movies and stuff. I’ve never missed it before. So uh, thanks. For this. I guess I  _ was _ thinking of it as a present.”

His gaze had gradually been shifting away as he spoke, and was now laser-focused in on a place somewhere just over Yusaku’s shoulder. Yusaku blinked. He forgot, sometimes, just how many people Takeru had waiting for him back at home. 

“Do you want to?” he asked, a badly thought-out sentence that had Takeru abruptly looking at him again. “Watch movies, I mean.”

“You have a tv?”

Yusaku shook his head. “We can watch stuff on my laptop. It’ll be small, but…”

He shrugged. He didn’t have to offer- especially when it would probably pale in comparison to whatever Takeru was used to- but it felt right to. Tonight had been fun, and Yusaku wasn’t quite ready to let go of it yet. 

Takeru laughed, and it was a pure, bright sound, like one of the lights twinkling around them. “Yeah! That sounds like fun. Let’s do it!”

And so the two of them wove their way back from the heart of Den City, away from the lingering crowds and back towards the spartan apartment that Yusaku called home. They peeled off their layers and kicked off their shoes and flopped down together on Yusaku’s bed as he pulled out his laptop and located a long list of Christmas specials to watch. 

Takeru asked for his favorite and was appalled to realize that Yusaku had never seen the bulk of them-  _ Yusaku! What do you mean you don’t watch Christmas movies!?- _ and immediately pointed out about eight of them that were, according to Takeru, required watching.

But as Takeru began to doze, still clutching the pillow to his chest as he leaned back against the wall… Yusaku picked up his phone and sent off a quick message to his only other relevant contact.

_ Is Christmas a couple’s holiday? _

It took a time for the reply to arrive. A pointedly long time- enough so that he already knew the answer before Kusanagi’s dry … _ Yusaku… _  came to prove the point. 

_ Huh, _ he thought, letting the sound of whatever Christmas special Takeru had chosen fade to the background as the clock ticked further and further away from midnight. Well. That wasn’t so bad. That wasn’t bad at all. 


	3. [fireball] birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3\. The days surrounding _that_ day were always the worst of the year. The weather was awful, turning cold enough to bite at the tips of Takeru’s exposed fingers and turning his nose bright red, chapping his lips and making shivers run up his spine no matter how many layers he put on. Call it an old habit, but Takeru usually stayed home. (This year, though, someone else was spending it with him.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just made it?? this time I went with the prompt [birthday]!

The days surrounding _that_ day were always the worst of the year. The weather was awful, turning cold enough to bite at the tips of Takeru’s exposed fingers and turning his nose bright red, chapping his lips and making shivers run up his spine no matter how many layers he put on. Call it an old habit, but Takeru usually stayed home.

Because what it came down to was: it wasn’t so much the day itself as what had happened as a result. Not to him- never to him, but... Takeru was strong. He’d always been strong. He’d always known that about himself, even if it took a bit of reminding, sometimes.

(Even if he really didn’t feel it some days, sitting out by the ocean and staring out into the horizon and wondering if there was still a reason he was living like this. Powerless, good for nothing, still haunted by the electricity searing through his skin as others stood hero where he dared not tread.)

But the moment he’d opened his eyes to find his grandparents sitting so worried at his hospital bedside, the way their expressions turned dark at his quiet question-

Takeru shook his head, sharp as he took a deep breath. He leaned back in his desk chair and squinted back down at his textbook, trying to summon up the motivation to keep studying. Supposedly this was supposed to be building on something he learned in middle school- not that Takeru had been there often enough for that to matter.

“Is something wrong?” The voice came from his duel disk propped on his desk in the corner, a little more out of the way than usual to make room for the books and notes spread out across it. Flame poked his head out of the top, tilted slightly to accentuate his question. Takeru shot him the best smile he could manage. Flame always had a sense for when his worries were getting the best of him, and it was reassuring as it had always been.

“It’s nothing. I promise.”

Flame squinted at him. Takeru shrugged, and avoided his gaze- he’d never claimed to be a good liar, and it seemed that today was no exception. Flame raised himself the rest of the way out of the duel disk and crossed his arms, studying Takeru with a careful scrutiny. “Ah. Could it be that-”

“Flame,” he said, “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“And I am here for you if you are not,” Flame said, with such sincerity that the smile Takeru turned on him then couldn’t help but be genuine, even if it was small and a little unsteady still.

“Hey,” Takeru said, crossing his arms and leaning down on his desk so that he and Flame were closer to eye level, “This is something my parents told me, once.”

Flame hummed softly, knowing the admission did not come easily for Takeru. He wasn’t an AI; his memories of his parents had dulled over the last decade, lost in the shock of trauma and time. He couldn’t remember their voices. But he could remember their words, if only just this.

“When something bad happens, you don’t let it get you down. You find something good about it to celebrate instead.”

At Takeru’s words Flame made a puzzled expression; though Takeru could tell he wanted to question them, or perhaps even protest, he held himself back. He’d grown a lot that way since they’d first met, too. It was a fond, tender thought. Takeru held tight to it. Because he understood Flame’s confusion- what good could there possibly have been in the day that derailed his life so completely?- but the answer was right there.

“For the longest time I couldn’t do that. There was nothing good about it. Not even being able to help out my grandparents, on the better days. Not even meeting Kiku, because I just ended up causing her trouble all the time. But you know? I finally figured it out. There is one good thing that’s making all the rest of it worth it. One that made me realize that I don’t have to be causing trouble for everyone who cares for me. So... Happy birthday, Flame.”

“But, factually speaking, today was not-” Flame paused, then bit down his protests and nodded. “Though I protest the use of _birthday._ Strictly speaking, I was not _born_ so much as I-”

Takeru laughed- though it came out more like an ungraceful snort- and held out a finger to tap Flame gently atop the head. “You were. And because you were I got to meet you, you know? So happy birthday, Flame. Thank you for being born.”

Flame coughed, apparently bashful, and Takeru had to wonder who exactly he learned that one from- then reached out with both hands to take his fingertip gently. He wouldn’t quite look straight at Takeru as he replied, “Well. As I’ve said. I was born to meet you. So, ah, I should be the one thanking you.”

Takeru just barely held himself back from laughing. _So he can give out all the flattery he wants, but he can’t take it, huh?_

“Really, Flame. Thanks. For everything.”

This was the point where Flame would usually try to start thanking Takeru for all his efforts towards saving the Cyberse and standing by his side as partner, and Takeru would try and thank him for the same, and they’d spiral into an endless loop of aggressive gratitude. But tonight wasn’t the time for that. Even without words, they already knew.

“It is the very least I can do,” Flame replied, and it sounded almost like a promise. And whether it was or wasn’t… Takeru thought it perhaps didn’t matter. They’d be together regardless, and for now, that was all that mattered. He smiled. Flame lit up ever so slightly, and for the first time in a decade, it wasn’t so cold in Takeru’s quiet little room. _Maybe next year,_ he thought with soft anticipation, _it might even be warm._


End file.
